• The Big Picture shares photos from the eruption of Mount Sinabung in Indonesia.
• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about the importance of colleagues for solitary writers.
• D-Brief notes the rediscovery of the Blue-Eyed Ground Dove in Brazil, once believed extinct.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes reports of the discovery of massive planets via gaps in ( Read more... )

The Dragon's Tales linked to Space News' report showing that the ESA is set to join NASA in the ranks of deep-space explorers.

The European Space Agency on Dec. 9 signed a contract with Airbus Defence and Space for the construction of ESA’s Juice - Jupiter Icy Moons - orbiter, scheduled for launch in 2022 aboard a European Ariane 5 rocket ( Read more... )

The Dragon's Tales links to a paper, "The formation of the Galilean moons and Titan in the Grand Tack scenario", that provides an explanation for why Galilean moons like Ganymede and Callisto lack atmospheres despite being as massive as densely-shrouded Titan. Migration in the early solar system explains this.

In the "Grand Tack" (GT) scenario for ( Read more... )

• blogTO shows the scope of the construction at College and Spadina, as streetcar track work continues.
• Centauri Dreams examines the evidence for a subsurface ocean on Ganymede.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper examining a very early Sun-like star and its debris belt, noting evidence that massive collisions are quite common.
• The Dragon's Tales links ( Read more... )

National Geographic's Nadia Drake reports on an unusual feature of Ganymede's surface that is, among other things, a hint about the existence of an ocean.

There’s a big, weird bulge on Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system. Protruding from a spot on the moon’s equator, the bulge is about 375 miles (600 kilometers) across, about the area ( Read more... )

Back on Friday, news that evidence had been found of a subsurface ocean on Ganymede, Jupiter's largest satellite, was widely propagating. Centauri Dreams' Paul Gilster (""Evidence Mounts for Ganymede’s Ocean") was one of the first bloggers on my RSS feed to report this.

Yesterday’s discussion of hydrothermal activity inside Saturn’s moon Enceladus ( Read more... )

• blogTO shares photos of the destruction of the World's Biggest Bookstore.
• Centauri Dreams looks at a proposal for interstellar slingshots.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper suggesting that tidally-locked Earth analogues will be habitable, avoiding scenarios where all their water is trapped on the nightside unless they have too little water.
• The ( Read more... )

• blogTO shares photos of Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s, a time when the downtown was dominated by ... parking lots.
• Centauri Dreams hopes that the 2030s will be the decade when Europa (and its sibling moons like Ganymede) get explored.
• Eastern Approaches guides readers through the competing Russian and Ukrainian iconographies of eastern Ukraine.
• ( Read more... )

• National Geographic notes the cultural and political revival of the Nubians, an ethnic minority originally from far southern Egypt displaced by the flooding caused by the Nasser Dam.
• thenews.pl claims that a half-million Poles emigrated last year, most to the United Kingdom and Germany.
• The Havana Times wonders why, after the reforms of recent years ( Read more... )

• City of Brass' Aziz Poonawalla takes issue with Muslims who have issues with Valentine's Day. What's wrong with celebrating love?
• Discover's D-Brief notes the new official survey of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede.
• The Dragon's Tales notes a study from China suggesting that while reforested areas are cooler in daytime, they are also warmer at night.
• ( Read more... )